Introduction

Individuals and groups are more mobile now than in any time in human history.
From the nineteenth century introduction of the locomotive to the late twentieth-century
creation of virtual travel in online environments, movement and migration have
increasingly mediated the ways in which we communicate, construct, and contest
our identities. This course explores the implications of our increasingly mobile
culture on our sense of self and society, while offering a set of conceptual
tools to explore and interrogate the implications of our increasingly placeless
culture.

Success in this course follows your
ability to:

 Increase your understanding
of human behavior and social interaction in the context of value systems,
economic structures, political institutions, social groups and natural environments.

 Employ discipline-specific
language to articulate the implications of mobility on national identity.

 Apply basic claims of postcolonial
critique to U.S. and global tourist sites.

 Reveal and critique places
in public life defined by mobility rather than permanence.